PROFIT FROM THE DAIRY 127 



records and provides a reliable guide for the farmer 

 in determining which of his cows should be elim- 

 inated from the herd. 



Careful selection, intelligent breeding and con- 

 tinual discrimination in culling out unprofitable in- 

 dividuals are essential to the most satisfactory type 

 of dairying, but these in themselves, no matter how 

 faithfully followed, will not bring results to the 

 farmer. The dairy cow is a highly developed ma- 

 chine for transforming grain and forage into milk 

 and dairy products. It will be necessary to fur- 

 nish her with all the feed she can consume, and it 

 will be further necessary that this feed should be 

 so selected and furnished in such proportions as 

 to enable her to produce the greatest possible 

 amount of milk and the greatest possible amount 

 of butter fat. An engine cannot be expected to 

 develop its full amount of power unless plenty of 

 fuel is furnished, and it is no more reasonable to 

 expect a cow to accomplish her greatest produc- 

 tion unless she is heavily and intelligently fed. 



SILOS AND SILAGE 



In these days, when one hears the word dairy, 

 he thinks of a silo. Under the present conditions, 

 when land in the dairy districts is extremely high 

 in price, and when all the feeds used in dairying are 

 in strong market demand and correspondingly valu- 

 able, it is scarcely possible to realize the maximum 

 profits from the dairy without using a silo in which 

 to store a cheap supply of efficient feed. The corn 

 crop furnishes by all odds the best feed for use in 

 a silo. The heavy tonnage makes it possible to 

 raise enough corn to fill a large silo upon a com- 

 paratively small area of land, while the large 

 amount of nourishing grain contained in this crop 



